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It’s a FACT, Jack: State Senate Passes Bill Aimed at Faux Women’s Clinics

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By Doug Porter

This week the State Senate voted 23-14 to approve Assembly Bill 775, the Reproductive FACT Act, sending it on to Gov. Jerry Brown.  Backed by a coalition that includes NARAL Pro-Choice and Planned Parenthood California,  AB 775 takes aim at the 200 plus so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) statewide.

The groups supporting the bill say the CPCs spread medical misinformation aimed at manipulating women to keep them from accessing abortion care. Unlicensed facilities  providing pregnancy-related services would be required to prominently display and include in their advertising a statement that clarifies that they are not medical facilities licensed by the state of California.

An undercover investigation by NARAL earlier this year found that 91% of CPCs visited falsely linked abortion with health problems like breast cancer, infertility, depression and even death.   [Read more…]

As Young Refugee Boy Identified, Photos Representing His ‘Outcry’ Reverberate

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Three-year-old Aylan Kurdi drowned along with his mother, Rehan, and older brother, Galip, while the family attempted to cross the sea from Turkey to Greece on Wednesday.

By John Queally / Common Dreams

As new details emerge about the young Syrian boy, now identified as three-year-old Aylan Kurdi—who drowned along with his mother, Rehan, and older brother, Galip, while the family attempted to cross the sea from Turkey to Greece on Wednesday—the global impact of the pictures has perhaps fulfilled the “sorrowful” hopes of the photographer who took the images in order to “make heard his outcry.”

It has now been reported that the father, Abdullah Kurdi, was the only member of the family of four to survive when the boat they and other refugees were traveling in capsized off the Turkish coast. In all, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, 12 people drowned when two boats attempting to reach the island of Kos capsized. Eight of the 12 were children. The news agency subsequently reported that several individuals had been arrested on smuggling charges related to the incident.   [Read more…]

Police Deaths Matter. Now, Can We Talk About Injustice?

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By Doug Porter

The gang at Fox News is doing their damnest to make a connection between #BlackLivesMatter and police officers killed in the line of duty.  Yesterday, Megyn Kelly and Katie Pavlich characterized Black Lives Matter as violent, with Pavlich calling it “a movement that promotes the execution of police officers.”

Elsewhere in the media the implied story is that cops are getting mowed down at a dramatically increasing rate.  The Los Angeles Times ran with a story saying “the recent bloodshed feels different.” 

CNN does it by slight of hand in its coverage of Illinois police officer Charles Joseph Gliniewicz and Texas Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth, telling us that the number of deaths in the line of duty this year has increased from 73 to 85.   [Read more…]

‘My Body, My Choice’ Is Not True for Women In Poverty, In Federal Employment, or In the Military

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By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

“My body, my choice” is a privilege for those whose insurance provides coverage for abortions (assuming that their employers don’t object), or who can afford to pay the expense out of pocket.That privilege doesn’t extend to women who receive Medicare or Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program benefits, the dependents of federal employees, dependents of military service members, Peace Corps volunteers, clients of Indian Health Service, and women in federal prisons, including immigration detention centers. As many as 20 million women are impacted not just by the 1976 Hyde Amendment (which has been reauthorized every year since), but by additional restrictions imposed by Congress in the early 1980s.   [Read more…]

Group Behind Planned Parenthood Attacks has Close Ties to Extremists

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Senior Policy Advisor convicted of conspiring to bomb a San Diego abortion clinic in 1988

By Joan McCarter / Daily Kos

The group behind the falsified videos attacking Planned Parenthood calls itself a “group of citizen journalists,” but is of course not actually journalists. What the so-called Center for Medical Progress really is is a group of committed anti-abortion activists with close ties to “some of the country’s hardest-line anti-abortion extremists,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The group’s leader and one of the actors in the videos is David Daleiden, “who was previously the director of research for Live Action News.” Live Action also produced falsified Planned Parenthood videos, in a failed effort to bring the organization down. But it’s the board members of CMP that have the strongest ties to extremist groups.   [Read more…]

SANDAG’s Transportation Plan is Stuck in Reverse

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By Hutton Marshall / SanDiego350.org

Climate change is a local issue that reaches every corner of the globe. Human activities, especially burning coal, oil and gas, are pumping heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. More than any other time in human history, we’re seeing unlivable marine habitats, rising seas that threaten to subsume coastal societies, and, on land, increases in extreme weather including droughts, floods and severe storms. The changes are happening everywhere, but the effects are felt locally. And the solutions have to come from changes we make in every community.

At SanDiego350, a local nonprofit fighting climate change, we believe that San Diego is at an important crossroads where we must decide how we will reduce our contribution to Earth’s looming climate crisis.  Once a month in the San Diego Free Press we’ll discuss some of these issues, and how San Diegans can help address them.   [Read more…]

Women’s Equality Day: Celebrating the Success of Militant Protest

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The argument of the broken pane of glass is the most valuable argument in modern politics.–Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst

By Doug Porter

Women’s Equality Day (August 26th) marks anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving women the right to vote.

There are observances this week in San Diego, including a re-enactment of an early-century Suffrage march in Balboa Park.

Organizations including the League of Women Voters, the United Nations Women’s Equity Council, the Older Women’s League and others, will join members and supporters of the Women’s Museum at 5pm for a Rally on Thursday, (Aug 27th) at the Kate Sessions Statue, at the 6th Avenue end of the Cabrillo Bridge, followed by a parade across the bridge info the Organ Pavilion where the last free concert of the summer will be held at 6:30pm.

While this commemoration will be celebratory in nature, it’s important to remember, as Frederick Douglass once said, “Power never concedes nothing without a demand.” In many sanitized versions of US history, the struggle leading up to that victory is depicted as controversial only because women left their roles as wives and house-makers to protest. The reality of what transpired is considerably different.   [Read more…]

But First …

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Living with ADHD in a distractive world

By Jeeni Criscenzo

I was surprised at the number of comments made to a recent post I put on Facebook about Attention Deficient Disorder with a photo of my desk that included such strange things as a small brown egg and a ½” diamond drill bit. It seems that my incessant state of distraction is a common problem in people my age (aka Seniors).

One person informed me that there is such a thing as Age-Activation Attention Deficit Disorder – AAADD ! Another linked to a comical video about a woman who went from one task to another without getting anything accomplished.

I didn’t laugh. When you have spent your life dealing with an inability to focus alternating with hyper-focusing, both to the detriment of yourself and everyone around you, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) isn’t very funny.   [Read more…]

Stolen Pay, Stolen Lives: It’s Time to Beef Up Enforcement for Wage Theft in California

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By Doug Porter

On the eve of an assembly committee hearing, the California Fair Paycheck Coalition and the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST) have released a new video showing the link between human trafficking and wage theft.

The state Senate has already passed SB 588, authored by Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León, enhancing the ability of the state labor commissioner to fight wage theft and help workers collect stolen pay.

Currently only 17% of workers receiving judgements for stolen wages are able to collect payment. Research indicates low-wage workers lose, on average, 12.5% of their annual income to wage theft.   [Read more…]

Area Legislators Return to Sacramento for a Final Push

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By Doug Porter

If you want to understand the issues at play in California politics, keep an eye on the last 20 working days of this year’s legislative session in Sacramento.

Bills will be debated, lobbied and amended. Some will face vetoes from the Governor.

San Diego’s delegation to the statehouse has done an impressive job in this session with several measures remaining to be voted on. Today we’ll take a look at some of the legislation, with an emphasis on our local legislators, up for consideration in the coming days.   [Read more…]

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